The West Shore Twilight Baseball League playoffs begin Tuesday evening and both local teams in the field - the Fayetteville AA's and the Shippensburg Stars - will have their work cut out for them.

Shippensburg comes into the playoffs having won its last two games and three of its last five, which enabled the Stars to capture the eighth and final spot in the postseason.

But what that did is put Ship (8-23-1) up against top seed Mechanicsburg (26-6) in the best-of-five, first-round series.

Fayetteville missed out on a chance to grab the No. 5 seed with a loss to Enola on Saturday, which would have put the AA's against No. 4 Dillsburg (18-14), a team they were 4-0 against this year.

"We were hoping that outcome would have been different so we would get Dillsburg," Fayetteville manager Terry Clark said.

Instead, the sixth-seeded AA's (13-18-1) will face No. 3 Central Penn (20-12), which was 3-1 against Fayetteville this season.

"Central Penn has some really good pitching that we seem to be challenged by," Clark said. "And we've struggled at their field (Creekview Park in Mechanicsburg)."

The Orioles are likely to pitch left-hander Tim Flannery (8-2) on Tuesday. He has beaten Fayetteville twice already this year, 11-1 on a two-hitter, and 3-0 on a five-hitter.

Clark is hoping Flannery won't fare as well against a different AA's team.

"I don't think we played them once this year with our full team," Clark said, "and we should be at full strength for the playoffs.

Advertisement

If we can get our boys to hit we should be all right."

While Fayetteville's pitching has been adequate - Clark said the staff ERA was slightly over 3.00 - the hitting has had some rocky games.

"We've struggled at the plate some," Clark said, "especially with not having enough consistency. But I think our young guys are getting it turned around here at the end of the year, so if our pitchers can hold the other team to one, two or three runs, we'll have a shot.

"I think we can put a dent in this first series."

Rusty Schellhase (3-2) picked up the only win this year against the Orioles. Clark will choose between him, Matt Smith (3-2), Brad Fitz (3-2), Andy Stottlemyer (3-3) and Jesse Mowen (1-2) for the series.

Shippensburg, which defeated Fayetteville 12-6 Friday to punch its playoff ticket, was 0-4 against Mechanicsburg this year, but one of them was a tight 4-3 verdict.

Like the AA's, the Stars appear to be putting out their best lineup at the end of the season.

"We just needed to win to get into the playoffs, had a good lineup tonight and hit the ball well," Ship manager Kevin Scholly said after the Fayetteville game, in which they had eight hits, three of which went for extra bases.

The Stars may also get a boost if Andrew Burke (1-1) is up to speed. He pitched two shutout innings on Friday and struck out four after having been on the shelf for much of the season.

Scholly said, "We'll probably throw Burke, Derek Coy, who can hopefully get off work, and Nick Umberger in our first three games."

Coy (1-4) pitched in the 4-3 defeat, while Umberger has a 4-3 record.

NOTES: Mechanicsburg has won five consecutive West Shore playoff titles against five different teams - 4-0 over Enola in 2008, 4-2 over Shippensburg in 2009, 4-3 over Enola in 2010, 4-1 over Newville in 2011 and 4-1 last year over Cumberland.

OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — The death of actor Leonard Nimoy last week has inspired people to post photos on social media of marked-up five-dollar Canadian banknotes that show former prime minister Wilfrid Laurier transformed to resemble Spock, Nimoy's famous "Star Trek" character. Full Story